Israel plagued with political corruption

With every passing day, another brick is added to the towering inferno of corruption around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Each news broadcast reports another crack in the bastion of aides and confidants Netanyahu built around himself. As his version of events disintegrates, Netanyahu is turning to a familiar line of defense known as “everybody does it,” along with the accusation that the media and political opposition are hounding him and his family. One can assume that such claims will not withstand the legal scrutiny of police investigators, the attorney general and court system. But is Netanyahu really being asked to pay an exorbitant price for violations of which his predecessors in power were cleared? Did the rules suddenly change in the middle of the game, as Vice President Spiro Agnew claimed during the Watergate affair?

Al-Monitor directed these questions to Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Or, who served as deputy director of the State Comptroller’s office, the official government watchdog charged with oversight of the country’s security forces and agencies. “I have conducted hundreds of investigations and inspections and have seen up close those who deviated, the damage they caused and their failures,” said Or. “The number of elected and senior officials paraded before us in a march of folly on their way to investigations, trials, community service and jails has kept growing over the years.”